Emburse Assurance Overview for Emburse Enterprise

Emburse Assurance helps your organization identify potential compliance issues and higher risk expenses earlier in the expense lifecycle. Depending on how your organization has configured it, Emburse Assurance can provide:

Real-time guidance while users capture receipts and build expenses
Risk indicators to help approvers review submitted expenses more efficiently
Post-submission review tools for users assigned the Emburse Assurance Auditor role

What Makes Emburse Assurance Different from Standard Compliance

Standard compliance typically uses policy rules and required fields to validate expenses (for example, receipt required over a threshold or business purpose required).

Emburse Assurance adds automated checks that can identify issues that are difficult to capture with standard rules alone, like receipt quality problems, mismatches between the receipt and the expense entry, and patterns that may require additional review.

Activation and Access

Emburse Assurance is not enabled by default. To request activation, contact your Emburse Enterprise account executive, CSM or ESA.
Your organization controls which checks are enabled and where they run in the workflow.
A specific Emburse Assurance Auditor role is required to view post-submission risk scores and detailed audit findings. This helps limit sensitive fraud indicators to the appropriate audience.

Who Sees What

Emburse Assurance supports three audiences:

Users: Receive proactive alerts during receipt capture and guidance during expense creation (depending on configuration).
Approvers: See indicators that help focus review on higher risk submissions after a report is submitted (depending on configuration).
Emburse Assurance Auditors: Users assigned the Emburse Assurance Auditor role can view post-submission risk scores and detailed findings.

How Emburse Assurance Works

Emburse Assurance runs checks at defined points in the expense process. Your organization can choose which checks to enable and where they apply.

Visual Indicators

Depending on your organization’s configuration, Emburse Assurance messages may include:

An AI sparkle indicator to distinguish Emburse Assurance guidance from standard compliance messaging
An ASSR rule identifier (for example, ASSR01) associated with a specific Emburse Assurance check
A blue Info-Only message for guidance that is only informational
A yellow Warning message that requires a response
A red Violation message to indicate necessary action

Info-Only vs. Warning vs. Violation Messages

Your organization can configure pre-submit checks to be informational, a warning, or a violation.

Info-only messages provide guidance but do not block submission and may not require a response. These are commonly shown in a blue box.
Warnings require a response but do not block submission. These are commonly shown in a yellow box.
Violations require action before submission (for example, fix a field, attach documentation, or add required context), depending on your organization’s policies and configuration. These are commonly shown in a red box.

Additionally, when users save a line item while the receipt is still processing, Emburse Assurance may display a violation indicating that the report cannot yet be submitted.

Processing in Progress warning indicating receipt is still being processed and submission is temporarily unavailable

This violation is temporary and may remain for up to two minutes while receipt processing finishes. Users cannot submit the report until all Emburse Assurance violations are resolved, but they can continue working elsewhere in the report. Once receipt processing and Emburse Assurance checks are complete, the Processing in Progress violation clears automatically.

The Three-Step Compliance Workflow

Emburse Assurance can be configured to occur in three stages:

Step 1: Proactive alerts (mobile app receipt capture)
Step 2: Pre-submission feedback (pre-submit expense creation)
Step 3: Post-submission review (post-submit audit review)

The checks listed in this article represent commonly available Emburse Assurance capabilities, but the checks enabled for your organization are configurable. Your implementation team or admin can help determine which checks are enabled and where they run in the workflow.

Step 1: Proactive Alerts During Mobile Receipt Capture

Audience: Emburse Enterprise mobile app users.
Trigger: Immediately when a user uploads a receipt to the mobile wallet (before an expense report is created).
Behavior: If an issue is detected, the user receives a push notification. This alerts users that they may want to upload a different receipt, if available, that includes the missing information.

Mobile app screen showing a proactive alert during receipt capture. The alert notifies the user that a meal receipt may require itemized details so the user can upload a different receipt if available.

Step 1: Proactive Alert Checks

Check	What It Checks	What It Means for Users
Non-Itemized Meal Receipt	Detects if a meal receipt is missing line-item detail (often these only show a card total). May run only if the total exceeds a configured threshold.	Replace the receipt with an itemized version or provide policy-required context.
Invalid Tax Receipt	Identifies whether a receipt is missing details needed for certain tax requirements (e.g., VAT reclaim), where applicable.	Capture a compliant tax receipt, depending on policy and tax reclaim requirements.

Step 2: Intelligent Pre-Submission Feedback During Expense Entry

Audience: Employees creating expenses and submitting reports.
Trigger: During expense creation and report submission.
Behavior: Guidance appears in the expense workflow. Certain guidance is info-only and does not prevent submission.

Pre-submission expense screen showing Emburse Assurance guidance and warnings for a meal expense, including missing itemization, excessive tip, and non-business day spend.

Step 2: Pre-Submission Checks

Check	What It Checks	What It Means for Users
Personal Expense Detection	Identifies items that appear personal rather than business-related.	Update the expense, remove it, or add a policy-required explanation.
Alcohol Detection	Scans line items to detect alcohol (including in supported foreign-language receipts) and calculates alcohol spend.	Your organization may require additional justification or may restrict reimbursement.
Weekend, Holiday, and Off-Hour Spend	Flags transactions made outside standard business hours (for example, weekends or holidays), based on configuration.	Add business context or confirm the expense complies with policy.
Excessive Tip Anomaly	Flags tips that exceed a configured percentage threshold.	Correct the tip or provide justification per policy.
Non-Itemized Meal Receipt	Detects missing line-item detail on qualifying meal receipts.	Attach an itemized receipt or provide required context.
Invalid Tax Receipt	Identifies missing tax details required for certain tax requirements, where applicable.	Obtain a compliant receipt if required by policy or reclaim needs.
Receipt Attendee Check	Checks the list of attendees on the line item against the AI-detected number of attendees from the receipt	Correct the list of guests on the line item.
Expense Category Inconsistency	Compares the expense type selected for a line item with the expense category derived from the receipt.	Correct the selected expense type.

Step 3: Emburse AI-Powered Post-Submission Review

Audience: Approvers and Emburse Assurance Auditors.
Trigger: After the expense report is submitted.
Behavior: Higher risk items can be flagged for review. Emburse Assurance Auditors can see risk levels and detailed findings (based on role and configuration).
Post-submission expense review screen showing multiple Emburse Assurance findings with risk indicators. The view highlights checks that require reviewer attention during approval or audit.

Step 3: Post-Submission Checks

Check	What It Checks	What It Means for Review
Fake Receipt Detection	Detects signs that a receipt may be forged, altered, or otherwise suspicious.	Review closely and follow your organization’s escalation process if needed.
Vendor Legitimacy Verification	Flags vendors that may be suspicious or cannot be validated using publicly available information.	Confirm business context and request additional documentation if required.
Unusual Amount or Price Anomaly	Flags amounts that appear unusual for the merchant, category, or location context.	Validate business purpose and confirm policy compliance.
Alcohol Detection	Detects alcohol line items and calculates alcohol spend.	Confirm compliance with alcohol policy and documentation requirements.
Weekend, Holiday, and Off-Hour Spend	Flags spend outside configured business time windows.	Confirm business purpose and policy compliance.
Excessive Tip Anomaly	Flags tips above configured thresholds.	Confirm tip policy compliance and justification.
Organization-Wide Duplicate Check	Detects potential duplicates across the organization (for example, the same receipt submitted by different employees).	Validate whether this is a duplicate and follow your duplicate handling process.
Receipt vs. Line Item Check	Validates that receipt details (date, amount, currency) match the entered expense details and flags mismatches.	Correct the expense or return it to the submitter for correction.
Non-Itemized Meal Receipt	Detects missing line-item detail on qualifying meal receipts.	Request an itemized receipt or required context before approval.
Receipt Attendee Check	Checks the list of attendees on the line item against the AI-detected number of attendees from the receipt	Correct the list of guests on the line item or return it to the submitter for correction.

What This Means for Users

Emburse Assurance helps you fix common receipt and expense issues earlier so your report can move through review with fewer delays.

You will typically use Emburse Assurance by:

Uploading receipts as you receive them and acting on any proactive alerts
Reviewing and resolving pre-submission messages before you submit
Ensuring receipts match your expense details (e.g., date, currency, and amount)

What This Means for Approvers

Emburse Assurance helps you focus your review on expenses that may require extra attention.

When you review submitted expenses:

Use triggered checks to decide where you need more context
Return the expense or report when the submitter needs to correct details or provide documentation
Follow your organization’s standard escalation process for suspected fraud or policy violations

What This Means for Emburse Assurance Auditors

Emburse Assurance Auditors can review post-submission findings in more detail.

Depending on your organization’s configuration, you may be able to:

View a risk level and a summary of which checks triggered for an expense
Review supporting details that explain what triggered a finding
Translate receipt text to help validate line-item details when receipts are not in your preferred language
Provide feedback on findings (for example, helpful or not helpful) to support ongoing improvement